Over the course of a half-decade and three albums, Richmond Fontaine has established itself as one of the better bands in the Northwest. When they expanded from a Buffalo Tom-esque trio by incorporating the considerable pedal steel and mandolin talents […]
Short, but sweet — yet not too sweet. The debut disc from Shannon Stephens clocks in at just over 15 minutes, its five songs sketching minimalist vignettes of a love dangling by a thread. “The Way Relationships End Up” finds […]
It all began when I was browsing through the atlas one day a few years back, looking for places that seemed interesting and far-removed from the beaten path. Or maybe I was listening to Joe Henry’s song “Sault Ste. Marie” […]
The inherent lag time involved in magazine deadlines is an ever-present little annoyance, often making moot any concerns about timeliness and frequently requiring rush-jobs on advance deliveries of new releases. Our answer, in part, is to present pieces that are […]
Short, but sweet — yet not too sweet. The debut disc from Shannon Stephens clocks in at just over 15 minutes, its five songs sketching minimalist vignettes of love perilously dangling by a thread. “The Way Relationships End Up” finds […]
For some players, music is ultimately just a stop along the road. I’m reminded of many aspiring musicians I’ve known over the years who eventually gave up the ghost and moved on: the Doctors’ Mob guitarist who’s now a record-store […]
The second record, many would contend, is the hardest one to make. Nothing can ever replace the fresh start of a debut; some artists become superstitious about a “sophomore slump”; and there’s Elvis Costello’s old observation that you have twenty […]
Family ties have tended to overshadow Bruce Robison’s status as a promising young songwriter lately. Not only is he married to Kelly Willis, but his musician brother Charlie recently wed Emily Erwin of the Dixie Chicks. Such relations likely make […]
Sometimes the decisions about who to put on the cover of No Depression seem to be made of their own volition. When the Gram Parsons tribute album Return Of The Grievous Angel started showing up on release schedules a few […]
“This is 20 minutes before I was knocked into the decade of the ’90s,” Vince Bell says by way of foreshadowing as he slips a tape into the living-room stereo at his home just outside Nashville. The recording he has […]
